“We acknowledge the ICC’s rating of unsatisfactory for this year’s Boxing Day Test match pitch,” said chief executive Stuart Fox said. “Our team will continue to strive to produce excellent Test match pitches, as they have done for the last three years when they received top marks from the ICC.”
Under ICC guidelines, a pitch can be marked unsatisfactory if it “does not allow an even contest between bat and ball” by “favouring the bowlers too much, with too many wicket-taking opportunities for either seam or spin”.
A total of 36 wickets fell in 142 overs, resulting in the match finishing in the final session of the second day. It was just the 26th two-day Test in the format’s 148-year history but also the second in this series after Perth’s truncated opener.
Perth Stadium’s track, which saw 32 wickets fall, was graded as “very good” by match referee Ranjan Madugalle. The Gabba pitch for the two-day Test against South Africa in 2022 was rated as “below average” under the ICC’s old system.
A venue with a pitch rated unsatisfactory is docked one demerit point, but with six needed before it is suspended from hosting internationals the real cost of such a penalty is reputational damage.
As the only Australian ground before this summer to have the highest rating of “very good” in each of the previous three seasons, the MCG had strong claims to having the best Test pitch in the country.
MCG curator Matt Page speaks to Australia coach Andrew McDonald on December 24.Credit: Getty Images
It comes eight years after the MCG pitch was marked as “poor” for the 2017 Ashes Test, which was heavily dominated by the batters. England opener Alastair Cook made a record 244 not out in a knock which was longer than the first three innings of this year’s lopsided game.
National coach Andrew McDonald has emphatically denied having any undue influence over the preparation of the pitch, and says curators in this country should never be asked to roll out made-to-order Test strips.
As the MCG Test hurtled through a turbulent two days, unsubstantiated rumours swirled around the stadium that this pitch, with its 10 millimetres of grass termed “furry” by Australia’s captain Steve Smith, had been requested by the home side.
McDonald’s rejection of those claims comes a day after MCC head curator Matt Page was adamant the home side played no role in the pitch he produced.
MCG curator Matt Page looks on during an Australia nets session on December 24.Credit: Getty Images
Other countries have long accused Australia of doing the same things as the likes of India and England in terms of team requests for the kinds of pitches to play on. But that notion is considered anathema to the Australian team and also to Australia’s curators.
McDonald made it clear that he and his team do not make demands of curators about the type of pitch that should be produced. Page said on Sunday that the home side had “absolutely no input”.
“I don’t know where or how that started, I’d like to know if you could give up the person [who] maybe spread that,” McDonald said.
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“But our conversations with the ground staff as always [are], how do you think it’ll play, what do you think it may do? And then we’re able to shape a team in and around that.
“I don’t know how to roll a wicket. I don’t know how to prepare a wicket. Our job is to go out there and solve the problems it presents. So to speculate that we’ve had a say in our wickets over a period of time, I think would be very incorrect.”
McDonald said he was open to CA working more collaboratively with curators on the general issue of pitch production, but no further than that.
“I don’t want to get to a situation if this is where you’re heading where we are asking for specific surfaces and tailor made to what we have at that point in time,” McDonald said.
Les Burdett, CA’s pitch adviser for the past 15 years, told this masthead how he counselled the likes of Page, Damian Hough (Adelaide Oval curator) and David Sandurski (the Gabba) to go about their conversations with coaches and captains.
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“You need to listen to the coaches and the captains,” Burdett said. “Don’t get involved in a heated conversation. You need to understand their expectations, and then you need to do the right thing by cricket.”
McDonald threw his support behind the embattled Page, saying his batters needed to shoulder some of the blame for the summer’s marquee Test lasting just two days.
“How did I think it’d play? I thought we would have got to day three, day four, but the cricket, mixed in with the surface didn’t allow that,” McDonald said. “And we’ve got to take some accountability in the way that we play as well. So it’s not wholly and solely the surface’s fault.”
Andrew McDonald on Monday. Credit: Getty Images
Formerly the coach of Victoria, McDonald has an intimate appreciation of the problems Page has overcome in turning the MCG pitch from a bowler’s graveyard in 2017 to one that had recently received top ratings from the ICC.
“He does an outstanding job, and it’s always sort of the perspective that I always use is, we have bad Test matches as well,” McDonald said.
“Sometimes these things can happen, but we support him in what he’s done and really proud of the evolution of the MCG. So hopefully people can have some context around where he’s been on the journey and support him for the next challenge that he faces.”
